thought of all these, I say—­and I thought how different this world would be if men would hold by the noblest ideals, and suffer the latent greatness in them to have its way—­if they would truly rule their own universe and not allow its movements to fall into chaos—­ how fair life would become!—­how replete with health and joy!—­what a paradise would be created around us!—­and what constant benediction we should draw down upon us from the Most High!  And gradually as I sat absorbed in my own reveries the afternoon waned into twilight, and twilight into dusk—­one star brilliant as a great diamond, flashed out suddenly above a rift of cloud—­and a soft darkness began to creep stealthily over sky and sea.  I moved away from the window and paced slowly up and down the room, waiting and wondering.  The music still continued,—­but it had now grown slower and more solemn, and founded like a great organ being played in a cathedral.  It impressed me with a sense of prayer and praise—­more of praise than prayer, for I had nothing to pray for, God having given me my own Soul, which was all!

As the darkness deepened, a soft suffused light illumined the room—­ and I now noticed that it was the surface of the walls that shone in this delicate yet luminous way.  I put my hand on the wall nearest to me—­it was quite cold to the touch, yet bright to the eyes, and was no more fatiguing to look at than the sunshine on a landscape.  I could not understand how the light was thus arranged and used, but its effect was beautiful.  As I walked to and fro, looking at the various graceful and artistic objects which adorned the room, I perceived an easel, on which a picture was placed with a curtain of dark velvet drawn across it.  Moved by curiosity, I drew the curtain aside,—­and my heart gave a quick bound of delight,—­it was an admirably painted portrait of Rafel Santoris.  The grave blue eyes looked into my own,—­a smile rested on the firm, handsome mouth—­the whole picture spoke to me and seemed to ask ’Wherefore didst thou doubt?’ I stood gazing at it for several minutes, enrapt,—­realising how much even the ‘counterfeit presentment’ of a beloved face may mean.  And then I began to think how strange it is that we never seem ready to admit the strong insistence of Nature on individuality and personality.  Up at a vast height above the Earth, and looking down upon a crowd of people from the car of a balloon, or from an aeroplane, all human beings look the same—­just one black mass of tiny moving units; but, in descending among them, we find every face and figure wholly different, and though all are made on the same model there are no two alike.  Yet there are many who argue and maintain that though individual personality in bodies may be strongly marked, there is no individual personality in souls—­ergo, that Nature thinks so little of the intelligent Spirit inhabiting a mortal form that she limits individuality to that which is subject to change and has no care for it in that which is eternal!